LAFIRE.COM
Los Angeles Fire Department
Historical Archive


Chief Jacob Kuhrts

chiefkuhrts_1900_illustrated_2.gif (59318 bytes)

Fire Chief
Los Angeles Volunteer Department

March 1880 to April 1883

Fire Commissioner
1886 to 1900

    In (the) old volunteer fire department there were many highly interesting characters.  Take Jake Kuhrts, for instance.  This gentleman has kept up his interest in fire matters to the present day, and as fire commissioner his advice has been invaluable to the body of which he is a member.  Many a time has Jake stretched his long legs in racing to fires as a member of the old "Thirty-Eights," setting a pace which many a shorter limbed man had much ado to keep up.  Jake is of German birth and began life as a sailor.  He is rich and has a rightful claim to be a man of leisure.  He is a compound of Nimrod and Izaak Walton, and with gun and rod he puts in his time right pleasantly, keeping an eye on the closed seasons on land and water, and seeing to it that everything goes well with the fire laddies.

 Excerpts from an article written  by Joseph D. Lynch 
for the Los Angeles Herald, June 25, 1905.

1832
1858

Born in Germany
Arrived in Los Angeles

LAFIRE.COM
Copyright 1999 All Rights Reserved.